Sugar on the Edge (Last Call #3)(21)
“Go lie down on my couch and get some more sleep,” he commands me, and I don’t even bother looking at him. Instead, I head into the laundry room, where I can still hear the machine whirring. The timer says it has twenty more minutes.
Just great.
Walking back into the kitchen, Gavin appraises me while standing in the same position.
“I made you a sandwich. It’s in the fridge,” I tell him and sit back down on the stool again, resting my chin on my hand. “I still have twenty minutes before your last load of laundry is done, and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Go lie down on the couch and sleep for twenty minutes then,” he demands of me again.
“No, thanks,” I say, refusing to look at him, even as my eyes start to droop.
“For f*ck’s sake,” I hear him grumble. The next thing I know, one of his arms is sliding under my legs, the other behind my back, and he’s lifting me from the stool.
“Gavin,” I yelp in surprise as he carries me into the living room, I’m sure to deposit me on the couch. “I don’t need to sleep. I can do that when I get home.”
“Just shut up, Savannah. For once, your mouth isn’t so sweet,” he growls at me, and then bends over to lay me on the couch with surprising tenderness.
I start to sit up the minute his arms release me, but he does nothing more than put his large hand in the center of my chest and push me back down. Whereas ten seconds ago, I felt bone weary with exhaustion, the warmth of his hand through my T-shirt causes my pulse to speed up. I struggle for just a moment, attempting to continue my rise, but his brute force wins out and he pushes me all the way back down.
“If you don’t lie down, I’m going to lie down on top of you and pin you there. Now which do you want?”
“Fine,” I huff out just to get him to leave, because there’s nothing appealing about him laying his body over mine, right? “Just until the laundry is done. Now go eat your sandwich and get back to work. I’ll see you next week, okay?”
He stares at me a moment, his lips curved up in amusement. “Sure thing, Sweet. See you next week.”
Gavin turns away and heads back into the kitchen. I close my eyes, and I’m immediately out.
What the f*ck are you doing, Cooke? I ask myself for about the hundredth time as I watch Savannah sleeping on my couch. The sun has gone down, and she’s been out for a solid nine hours. I’ve never seen anyone sleep that hard before. She hasn’t moved a muscle… at least not as far as I can tell.
After I deposited her on the couch, I ate my sandwich and went back to work, banging out another three thousand words before dinnertime. I came back downstairs, expecting to see the couch vacated, but she was still flat on her back, one arm resting over her stomach where her T-shirt had ridden up just enough to give me a tiny peek at the smooth flesh. Her long legs were bare as she was wearing a pair of denim shorts today because the weather is quite mild. My f*cking fingers itched to touch her, but I shook my head to clear it of such ludicrous thoughts and went into the kitchen to heat the Mexican casserole she left me.
I vowed to myself if the smell of the food woke her up, I’d offer her some and send her on her way. When that didn’t work, I figured the banging around in the kitchen while I ate and then rinsed my dishes would wake her up, and then I’d send her on her way. She stayed soundly asleep.
Only after I grabbed a bottle of scotch and a glass, this one a plastic tumbler with a brown and green palm tree on it, and poured my first drink, did I sit on the loveseat opposite of her and vow to myself I’d wake her up after I finished my first one.
Now, two glasses of scotch later, she still hasn’t stirred. I don’t know why I’m not waking her up and making her leave. Staring at her in the dim light cast from the one lamp I have turned on, my thoughts take a dark turn. Why is this slip of a girl causing me so much fascination? She’s not like my usual brand of tramp that I like to f*ck and then tell them to get the f*ck out of dodge. I’m attracted to her… sure. But it scares me to think that the attraction is because I can’t quite figure her out. I normally steer clear of any type of situation that takes me out of my comfort zone, and she definitely makes me uncomfortable.
I’m pleasurably warmed by the scotch, yet I hesitate to pour another glass. Just weeks ago, I only survived my life by drinking myself into a stupor most nights. Sometimes I’d really launch myself into oblivion by taking some coke, desperate to escape my past.
But now, I don’t have that compulsion. I’m drinking my scotch tonight and enjoying the smoky, sweet flavor… relishing the slow burn when it hits my stomach. I’m not burning my taste buds out by gulping it down, but rather taking small sips to appreciate the fine art of single malt chemistry.
It’s definitely an appreciation tonight, not a compulsion.
Sitting in the semi-dark, sipping my liquor and watching a woman sleep. Some would find that romantically sweet. I find it to be macabre, because no matter the fascination sweet Savannah holds for me, when it boils right down to it, deep down I want to break her. I want to prove to myself that she’s nothing special… that she’s exactly as I imagine her to be. An uninteresting sort of woman who thinks more of herself than she actually is, and in the grand scheme of things, she’ll never amount to more.
It’s why I haven’t changed the plot line of her character. Yeah… she called me an *, and yeah, she’s asserting herself with me more, but she’d never have done those things if I hadn’t practically dared her to do them. She doesn’t have it in her… not for the long haul anyway, to really push at me.